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Michael Bubolo (national DSLR trainer for Sony Alpha) told Amateur Photographer that the A77 would probably be launched this year and that it would definitely use the translucent mirror technology. Michael said the A77 will feature substantially better EVF and ISO will go ‘up into the hundreds of thousands’!!! The body itself is made with magnesium alloy and the price will be in the same area of the [shoplink 5117]Canon 60D ($900-1200. Click here to check price)[/shoplink].
Michael also said that “the specification is not finalised yet and that all details are subject to change, including the shape of the body itself.”

Interesting but also frustrating that they can’t give us any release date. I guess the rumors I received saying that Sony has still some issues in working out problems with the translucent technology are correct….:(

According to Amateur Photographer the 500mm f/4 lens will be released at the same time of the A900 replacement. Sony is showing a lens prototype at CES which includes on-barrel control buttons. It’s very interesting to note that the lens prototype has a Direct Manual Focus (DMF) control which enables a 15x magnified view of the scene to help focusing. That feature works only for cameras that do use electronic viewfinders only! So I guess Sony will release a Full Frame camera with Translucent mirror!

The question now is…when is Sony going to announce the next FF camera? Not very soon…. :(

I got two mails from a new source (Thanks!) that seems to know a lot about the upcoming new NEX products. According to him Sony will:

1) release a NEX-4 (16 Mio, 1080p Video) in May 2011 (its the successor of [shoplink 3003]NEX-3[/shoplink]). It will be available as a kit (no body only).
2) The successor of the [shoplink 3003]NEX-5[/shoplink] is coming later, together with…
3) the NEX-7 (24 Mio) in October. The NEX-7 will have the the same sensor like A77 a lot of “mechanical” controls and superb build quality. The cost of nex7 together with 18-55 lens is ~1200€-1250€.
4) New lenses this year: 1,7/24 ZEISS, 3,5/30 Macro, 1,8/50 and 4-5,6/55-200.

The source will read your comments on this post so ask him whatever you want!!!

If you can confirm or deny or correct those rumors feel free to contact me at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com or use the contact form on the right sidebar (it doesn’t store the IP address and you can avoid to send me your name and email but please use some kind of nickname so that I will be able to recognize you in future). Thanks!

Reminder (SR = Sonyrumor):
SR1=probably fake rumor
SR2=rumor from unknown sources
SR3=50% chance it is correct
SR4=rumor from known sources (60-80% the rumor is correct)
SR5=almost certainly correct!

I had new talks with my sources. They all expect the announcement of many new compact camera (I did count eleven cameras). And we are pretty sure there will be no new “real” NEX or A77 announcement. The only thing we can hopefully expect are prototype presentations of the future NEX-4(?) and Sony A77 cameras. So please don’t expect to much from the Sony live press conference. Let’s keep it down to earth. All we can hope is that Sony will give us some kind of new timeline and specs of the future NEX/Alpha cameras and lenses.

Anyway the good news is that a few of my sources confirmed some of the A77 specs I already posted on SonyAlphaRumors one month ago. I will repost them here:

According to my sources Sony has chosen to use a completely new sensor for the upcoming professional SLT (Translucent) camera. The sensor will have 24 Megapixels but don’t worry, I have been told the noise performance of the sensor is equal if not better than current 14-16 Megapixels Sony sensors used for the [shoplink 3003]NEX[/shoplink] and [shoplink 3617]A33/A55[/shoplink] cameras. It will feature the highest resolution APS-C camera on market (The [shoplink 4406]Canon 7D[/shoplink] is on top with the 18 Megapixel sensor). The Sony A77 will be released by mid 2011 because Sony needed time to develop an almost perfect camera. There will be many innovations (Paul Genge of Sony UK said that “this camera will include such high specification features that current [shoplink 3228]A700[/shoplink] owners will be amazed“). It will have an improved BIONZ processor (based on the current A33/A55 processor), micro af adjustment and record 1080/30p, 720p60 and 720p30 (But we can’t exclude last minute improvements like 1080p24). I also do know that Sony original plan was to release the A750 with Optical Viewfinder but I don’t know yet if Sony will indeed bring that prototype to the market (let’s say there is a 50% chance).

See you at 1am London time!!!

A new source contacted me to share info about the upcoming NEX camera. He said the NEX-4 will be on market in May. It will have the same [shoplink 3617]Sony A55 sensor[/shoplink] (16 megapixel) and record 1080p Video! It is the successor of the [shoplink 3003]NEX-3[/shoplink]. Let’s see if tonight Sony will show us the NEX-4 prototype that confirms the rumor.

The source gave me the whole NEX camera/lens roadmap for 2011! I do not post that info yet because I want first to check them with other sources. If what he gave me is correct than Sony has a few spectaculars surprises! He said there are two other NEX cameras and four NEX lenses to come in 2011. Hope I can give you more info soon…

I want to thank the source for sharing the news and I hope he will write me back soon ;)

For all our sources: If you send me messages through the contact form please use some kind of nickname so that I recognize you in the future. It will make me easy to choose the Rumor ranking (SR1-SR5). Avoid to give me your real name and email address and remember no IP address will be stored. That’s why you are completely untraceable. Keep in mind that I usually do rewrite the text you send me. Sometimes I do post rumors after weeks or months only because as you can imagine I do often receive fake or partially correct rumors. That’s why I have to doublecheck them with other sources. You can also contact me (Andrea) at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com. Create a fake gmail account using fake names. That will help me to write you back. Thanks!

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I didn’t receive any new rumor about the “mysterious” NEX camera. The only thing we know for sure is that there will be at least one new NEX camera (prototype?). Another source told us that Sony will also show again a Sony A77 prototype. I really hope it’s not the same prototype shown at the Photokina (see the picture on top) as this is definitely NOT the real A77. Anyway I hope to have more reliable and detailed info soon. And if not, than the Sony live conference (scheduled for Wednesday 5pm Las Vegas time) will give us the final answer.

Rumor correction: A few Sony compact cameras will be announced in February and not at the CES. That includes the rumored compact camera with 1080p60 recording. We will post a new article about that soon.

We all know Sony has a maniacal love for prototypes. Now according to one of our very good sources Sony will show a prototype of a new NEX camera at the CES show. But before you start to blame Sony I have a good news for you. According to a second trusted source that camera will be on market within 2-3 months so unlike the A77 prototype we don’t have to wait that much to buy it!

It has been very difficult for me to get some info about that camera. It’s a prototype that only a few people have seen (it has been shipped from Japan to US without informing the press about his existence). That is what I got from different sources:

Trusted source 1: The new model is called NEX-4. But this could be the temporary name ony (for the prototype). I was told that this is not the NEX-7 which is supposed to become the [shoplink 4718]GH2 competitor[/shoplink].
Trusted source 2: It’s a compact NEX with slightly bigger body than the current [shoplink 3003]Sony NEX-5[/shoplink]. It has advanced button controls like the [shoplink 4321]Panasonic GF1[/shoplink].
New source 3: I suspect Sony will come out the new nex mirrorless version of [shoplink 3617]a55[/shoplink] during CES next week. (Don’t know if the source wanted to say that it uses the same 16Megapixel sensor).

I was told Sony will also show the A77 prototype and maybe something else (Lenses?). If you have some rumors to share feel free to contact me using the contact form on the right sidebar or write me (Andrea) at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com.

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P.S.: There will be a lot of new compact camera announcements:
DSC-W510: 12MP, 2.7 in. screen, sweep panorama function
Cybershot DSC-W530: upgrades to a 14MP sensor
Cybershot DSC-W560: adds SteadyShot and 720p HD video
Cybershot DSC-W570: adds 16MP, 5x zoom (25mm on the wide side)
Cybershot DSC-WX9: high end model, 16MP Exmor R CMOS, 3 in. LCD, 1080i video, 3D, 10fps, background defocus feature, HDMI
Cybershot DSC-WX10: top of the line, f/2.4 lens, manual WB, very high speed AF
Cybershot DSC-H70: 16MP CCD sensor, 3 in. LCD, 720p HD video, sweep panorama
Cybershot DSC-HX7: 16MP Exmor R CMOS sensor, 3 in. LCD, 1080i video 3D, HDR, 10 fps
Cybershot DSC-T110, DSC-TX10 – very small point and shoot camera, no other details available